14 DAY TRIAL // So far, the release date of Intel's upcoming Sandy Bridge-E desktop processors has been shrouded in mystery, but the wait now seems to be over as a recently uncovered report suggests that the first CPUs based on this high-performance architecture may arrive as soon as October of this year.
This comes to contradict the rumors that stated Intel has delayed the launch of desktop Sandy Bridge-E to the first quarter of 2012, and originated from a Chinese website.
The website doesn't have a specific date, but it has found out that Intel's plans ask for the chips to be launched in weeks 40 to 49 of 2011, which span from the beginning of October all the way to December.
Outside of the rough release date, the publication also uncovered the price of the upcoming Sandy Bridge-E based Core i7-3930K, which is expected to retail for $560. This makes it about $23 cheaper than the six-core Core i7-980/970.
While no information regarding the pricing of the high-end Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition was provided, this is expected to hover around the $999 mark.
Outside of the two processors mentioned above, Intel's initial Sandy Bridge-E desktop launch will also include a third chip that is known as the Core i7-3820.
This is the slowest of the three CPUs to be launched as it includes only four processing cores with a base clock speed of 3.60 GHz and a maximum Turbo speed of 3.90 GHz. These are accompanied by 10MB of Level 3 cache memory.
For the Core i7-3960X and Core i7-3930K, Intel has increased the core count to six as well as the amount of L3 cache integrated to 12MB and 15MB, respectively.
However, the base operating frequencies are lower than that of the quad-core processor, as the Core i7-3960X is clocked at 3.30GHz with a maximum Turbo of 3.90GHz, while the Core i7-3930K works at 3.2GHz and has a maximum Turbo of 3.80GHz.
All the processors sport a quad-channel DDR3 memory controller that can officially support memory speeds up to 1333MHz.